Doomsday Can Wait (Phoenix Chronicles, #2)(47)

If another Nephilim had been dispatched to kill me, if the woman of smoke had returned, I'd have some warning. The amulet was, if not ashes, definitely a lump of molten metal.

Of course, in this neighborhood, someone could very well be watching me with no more designs than to rob me, perhaps rape or kill me—maybe all three. Sadly, that scenario would be preferable to the first, if only because I could handle human monsters with ease. The problem would be getting rid of the bodies so I didn't have to explain how I'd done it.

Wasn't that always the rub?

Carla had said I should not wait in the car but head to a hotel. I could only hope that Sawyer would survive whatever she might do to him and find me as promised.

I checked my cell phone, which now had plenty of service and no indication of any missed calls.

"Damn." Summer hadn't gotten back to me. What was she playing at? She'd gone after Jimmy this morning. She had to know I'd be waiting to hear what had happened. Unless—

I broke off the thought. I didn't want to consider what might be keeping Summer from getting back to me. Anything that could take out a fairy and a dhampir was something I didn't want to meet but no doubt would. Soon.

There were bound to be hotels near the airport, so I followed the signs, picked one, checked in, called Summer. She didn't answer. Again.

I was too nervous to sleep, too nervous to eat, too nervous to read or watch TV, which was full of stories about the increasing chaos in the world. All I could do was pace.

I had to know so I picked up the phone again, then remembered my other connection.

"Touch something he did," I whispered.

I sank onto the bed, lay back, brushed my hand over my stomach, my breasts, my lips.

Nothing.

The last time I'd tried this, I'd been aroused, on edge, lust had been thrumming in my blood. Now I was too upset to feel anything but scared.

I took a deep breath, let it out. Forced myself to relax, and as I did my mind spun backward.

As kids, Jimmy and I had fought. There'd been jealousy over Ruthie's attention, a wrangling to be the leader of all the little children. We'd poked at each other, played tricks. After he'd put a snake in my bed, I'd bloodied his nose and loosened a few of his teeth. But he'd never laid a hand on me in violence, and for Jimmy that was downright saintly. Then had come a time when we'd realized there was something more than rivalry between us.

The heat of a summer day, the breathless excitement at the touch of his hand, his mouth, the knowledge that what we were doing was big trouble, but we were going to do it anyway.

Hiding in closets to steal a kiss. We'd sneak outside in the depths of the night. The moon spilled over us as we lay in the grass. He was so beautiful—skin smooth and dark, his hair shaggy and soft, his face full of everything he felt.

He'd worshipped me. I was quite certain he'd killed for me.

For an instant I heard another voice, saw my tears, the bruises, Jimmy's face, and I forced those thoughts away.

"Jimmy," I murmured. "Where are you now?"

I needed a memory of love. It wasn't as if I didn't have quite a few. Even if he'd never loved me, as I'd come to believe, I had loved him enough back then for both of us.

Once we'd bumped into each other in the upstairs hall; he'd been heading down to help Ruthie bring in groceries from the huge van that was our only vehicle. I'd been heading to my room to grab my shoes and do the same thing. All the kids had been outside. We could hear them through the window.

It was early autumn. School had just started, and the air was still muggy and hot. I had on shorts and a tiny white top.

We'd looked both ways and crossed the hall, our mouths crushing together, my back meeting the wall, even as his fingers brushed my thighs, sliding upward, beneath the material, to caress the barely hidden curves.

As always the instant he touched me my heart beat so fast my skin flushed, becoming supersensitive, so that every stroke seemed to echo everywhere.

He lifted me; I crossed my ankles behind his hips and he pressed his erection between my legs. All that lay between us were some flimsy nylon shorts and underwear. I could feel the heat of him, the pulse. I took a breath to cry out and he drank in the sound with his mouth, as together we shuddered. Then he laid his forehead against mine, the dark drift of his hair across my cheek making my heart tumble into love as the scent of his skin was forever imprinted upon me.

"Lizzy," he'd whispered. "I—"

Then Ruthie had shouted for us and we'd fallen apart, straightened up, hurried down, whatever he'd been about to say as lost as we were soon after.

But I would remember until the day that I died how I'd felt right then when he held me, when he'd said my name in a voice so full of longing my eyes had burned, and my chest had ached. I'd believed that for the rest of my life, the only man I'd ever truly love was him.

Now, in a rented bed in a rented room in Detroit, I touched my chest, where my heart lay, where Jimmy had touched me that day merely by saying my name, and I tumbled out of myself and into the vision.

New Mexico. Different terrain from Sawyer's place on the reservation. The rock was still red, mountains still loomed, but the grass, the scrub, the cacti were slightly off. Still I recognized it instantly.

I assumed the white tents set up in an open area outside a small town were for the Gypsy traveling show. Especially since I could just make out the sign welcome to red rock on the dusty road beyond.